Quint talks aliens, South London gangs, Spielberg and more with Attack the Block director Joe Cornish!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. There were few more buzzed about films at SXSW this year than ATTACK THE BLOCK. And oddly, that buzz grew in pitch; the sign of a genuinely good movie. I know that first screening was packed (I was there, waited 2 hours in line to guarantee entry), but not much was known about the movie going in. I think a lot of people were there based on a fun sounding alien invasion movie, some were there because Edgar Wright and Nick Frost were supposed to attend and some were there because they were already in the vicinity.

But what sets Attack the Block apart from a lot of buzz films is that the movie delivered on the thrills, the humor and excitement while also giving us a fairly somber portrayal of life in South London. There’s a real subtext to this goofy chase-em-up that shines through thanks to solid writing by Joe Cornish and the fantastic performances of the hooligan teens, led by a young guy named John Boyega who pretty much shows up and demands you realize he’s going to be a star in the very near future.

The two screenings following the premiere were chaotic as people who had seen the movie already rearranged their schedules to watch it again and those who hadn’t worked it in began organizing their days around getting into the movie. And they loved it, too. It was pretty amazing to follow my Twitter feed and see this unfold.

Now here’s my interview with writer/director Joe Cornish about the flick. At the intro Cornish listed off a series of influences. They were the usual suspects of The Shining, Spielberg, etc… but then he threw Critters in there and I’ll be damned if a little bit of Critters didn’t end up in the final film.

We talk a bit about that, the subtext of the film, the influence of Spielberg’s films and a little about actually working with the man himself (Cornish recently co-wrote Spielberg’s TINTIN film). Cornish came across as a real deal geek and a super nice guy and I think you’ll see that in the text below. Enjoy!

Quint: You won me over when you dropped the CRITTERS comparison during the intro and then lived up to it!

Joe Cornish: That’s very kind of you.

Quint: Because you know anybody who makes anything in the genre can always drop the big ones. They can talk about THE SHINING, but not too many people go “Yeah, CRITTERS was a big influence…”

Joe Cornish: I know what you mean. It does feel quite pretentious as a director when you are asked what your influences are, because the subtext is always “My film’s as good as those films” and it’s seldom the case and I would be flattered if you thought I had even a little fragment of CRITTERness.

Quint: What I liked about the comparisons is you can see it in the movie. Do you know what I mean? You also have the humor and you spend a lot of time getting to know your characters before the ferocious aliens are dropped in. I think a lot of filmmakers today just like to get right into the action stuff and a lot of people wouldn’t take the time to actually build a nice character arc for your protagonists. In your movie, the kids kind of start off as villains.

Joe Cornish: Yeah, they are bad kids. He’s a bad kid at the beginning.

Quint: I guess that’s my roundabout way to get around to just your process and your thoughts in writing the character and starting that arc. Was it always intentional or was that something that developed over time?

Joe Cornish: Well, it was based on my own experience. I grew up in South London my whole life. You know, South London is a beautiful place, it’s very mixed, there’s an amazing sense of community and nothing bad had ever happened to me there for my whole life. It’s one of those areas and I don’t know if there are similar areas and cities in America where when you tell people you live there they go “Oh, that’s nice… is it okay? Are you all right?” kind of thing. I spent my whole life going “Yeah, I’m fine.”

I love the area, it’s beautiful and then one time like when I was in my early 30’s I was mugged by these kids. It was kind of pathetic and happened very quickly. They were frightened. I was frightened. And it just struck me that the lead kid.... He was so young looking, I could see his humanity, I could see the fear in his eyes, and it struck me “You probably live around the corner. We’ve probably passed each other in the park every day. I’m probably on the same level of Call Of Duty and probably listening to the same music… I probably could have a conversation about FAMILY GUY with you and yet here we are, you with a mask on, me terrified, in this weird ritualized pantomime situation.”

It made me think two things; it made me think, “I want to talk to that kid. I want to sit down with him and have that conversation about video games and FAMILY GUY and say ‘Why have you taken my phone?’” and it also sparked all of these things that from my childhood growing up there, like my whole generation I’m a child of Spielberg and Lucas and I saw all of those films while I was in that environment and as a kid I would project those fantasies into my own environment… So I think it was kind of a symptom of a traumatized brain that that childhood part of my brain opened up after the mugging and started to fantasize about “What would happen if that incident was corrupted by some fantastical intervention kind of thing?”

That’s just what got the ball rolling and then I started to see these science fictional things in that world like the costumes they wear they look like bandits or ninjas. The projects where they live, the architecture where they live, was futuristic when it was built. Kubrick shot A CLOCKWORK ORANGE in estates in south London… You know, the architecture in LOGAN’S RUN, even METROPOLIS… That stuff was supposed to be futuristic, now it’s seen as this grim, downbeat, depressing thing, but I thought “Why not bring back that aspirational sense to it? Because if I was a kid living in those estates, I would dig riding my bike along those walkways. I would dig the fact that my block looked like a spaceship and I think they probably do.

So yeah, I was looking for connections between this quite mundane downbeat world as depicted in British films usually and the science fiction that I loved and also the gang movies I loved. I saw all of these opportunities to make a movie like the movies I loved from America in this milieu that was British, but that secretly had this little play set that no one had picked up the toys yet. Everyone was using these toys to make serious depressing dramas, I thought, “Hang on a second, there’s vehicles, there’s costumes, there’s weapons, there’s architecture, there could be something else here.”

Quint: All we have got to do is drop some glowy toothed aliens in there. (Laughs)

Joe Cornish: Exactly. That’s what was so amazing about ET. ET is like a Ken Loach film with a pipette of fantasy in it, a droplet of fantasy kind of thing.

Quint: And CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, that whole suburban drama aspect… Even in POLTERGEIST…

Joe Cornish: Yeah, the Spielberg… You see it in the SUPER 8 trailer. Spielberg’s “families around a table” are amazing and they are good, if not better than Mike Leigh, they are better than Ken Loach, they are as good as Altman… I mean he’s an amazing realist director, but he’s also an amazing fantasy director.

Quint: That was always the best part about Spielberg’s stuff is that there was an automatic entrance for most people. Even if you didn’t grow up in the suburbs, you went to the suburbs. More that even that though, the family dynamics didn’t really change from apartment to suburbs, so it’s like once you have a connection with the characters that’s your in. If you can give an audience an excuse to suspend their disbelief and get in there, then that’s all you need and that’s another thing that I really liked about the arc of the main character and I don’t mean to keep harping on it, but it wasn’t just “Oh, I’ve learned the err of my ways. This lady that we mugged earlier is a nice lady.” It’s like the whole alien invasion stuff essentially became a representation of him having to take responsibility for his actions, to the point where everything that has happened is quite literally his fault. The deaths of his friends and the people in the community are because of what he did.

Joe Cornish: I think there’s a truth in that. Those kids in all inner cities wherever you are in the world, they are presented with a difficult set of a choices, not immediately employable, because of prejudices out there and one choice when you are young can set you on a really difficult path. So yeah that was absolutely what the metaphor was kind of thing.

Quint: You could replace the aliens with another gang and it would have been a drama. There’s a reveal in the movie that shows how one cruel deed sticks to those involved.

Joe Cornish: That was the idea and the idea was those kids are demonized in the British media and much as I love the craft of films like EDEN LAKE and CHERRY TREE LANE, I have an ethical issue with the way they portray those kids, so I wanted to try and flip that. The idea was to take all of the adjectives that the media used to describe those kids “Bestial. Feral. Amoral. Selfish. Territorial.” create a creature out of those adjectives and then set that creature on the kids and bring the humanity of out of the kids. That was the premise, yeah. I’m glad it came through, man!

Quint: It did. I don’t want to make it sound like that this is a dour soapbox preaching kind of movie, because it’s so much fun. My whole row was in hysterics throughout. My good friend Jarrette has like the most recognizable load piercing laugh...

Joe Cornish: Ahhh! I love Jarrette. His laugh made me very happy. That was cool.

Quint: He was so into it and it’s such a fun movie, especially at midnight when I had been up since nine o’clock in the morning and for the movie to play… it couldn’t have been all message, let me just say that. You have the fun movie, but then you have the subtext beneath that you can take or leave if you want it.

Joe Cornish: Yeah, well that was very much a Carpenter thing, an ASSAULT ON PRECINT 13 thing, and also I’m a big fan of Lindsay Anderson. IF… is one of my favorite movies, so I love a bit of gentle quiet and political subtext that’s there if you want it, but you are absolutely right. This is a fun escapist action chase monster movie first and foremost and if you don’t want the subtext, you don’t have to have it. It’s never said…

Quint: But there is a political science quiz at the end of the movie.

Joe Cornish: (laughs) Exactly, yeah you do get a qualification if you end up understanding it.

Quint: Since we are at the end of the interview here, we’ve talked a lot about loving Spielberg’s movies, but few of us can say we’ve worked with the man. You’ve gotten to do that, yeah?

Joe Cornish: Yeah.

Quint: How was that experience? Especially on something like TINTIN, which I understand is very close to his heart… I met him once and we talked mostly about Ray Harryhausen, Willis O’Brien, KING KONG, and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG… things he was passionate about…

Joe Cornish: (Laughs) It sounds like you were more relaxed than I was.

Quint: Oh no, not on the inside, my friend.

Joe Cornish: I couldn’t… You know when people ask me that, I just say, “Well, how would you feel?” Because that’s how you feel, isn’t it? Especially people like us who were kids when his stuff was cooking. I just had to focus on the work. That was my life raft. I just clung on to trying to do as good a work that I possibly could for him and I tried not to think about his amazing films. It’s hard because he’s been making them nonstop for however long it is.

He’s the architect of my imagination, so to meet the architect of your imagination… It’s got a little bit of INCEPTION about it going in and you just have to try and hold onto your sanity. The way I did that was through the work and then to put Mr. Peter Jackson into the mix as well was amazing and I feel very, very privileged to have had the opportunity to work with them and I wouldn’t have been there without Edgar [Wright]. Edgar got called by Peter Jackson to help out with the script and Edgar pulled me in because he knew I was a TINTIN fan, so yeah I feel really lucky and really privileged.

Quint: Allright, well thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Joe Cornish: Thank you, man.

Attack the Block still doesn’t have US distribution yet, which is a horrible shame. Where’s Rogue? Where’s Lionsgate? Are they scared of the accents? They might be, but then again the same argument was thrown on Shaun of the Dead and that one did okay. So, hopefully we’ll see that resolved soon and everybody can go see this really fun, funny, gory, sad, creepy, sweet movie.

lol ... What a load of shite ... only people obsessed with class are the fucking rich ... and thats the same anywhere in the World. As for chavs, they are the scum of the FUCKING Earth. If this even remotely promotes these little cunts in a good way then I hope it bombs hard.

you fucking idiots. This is coming from a guy who got a nasty punching from one of the kids of the Danbury Avenue block... into a subsequent nasty fight-rematch after being jumped-assaulted by a bunch of his little rudes, and also funnily enough like is described above but in a different way for me, 'The Most Pathetic Mugging Attempt Of All Time (TM)'... bastard in Leytonstone expertly bike-snatched my phone early in the morning of to work going "GIMME THAT!" ...that one i kind of blame my own stupidity a little bit for happening, but in retrospect polarizes me as I find so much humor from simple swift cunning in what he did there... maybe you had to be there to appreciate it and not be convinced i have stockholme Syndrome or something.
Now, i don't excuse violent or bullish little wankers praying on people and willing to cause them harm, there little nasty shits for doing it they are; but the fact is i wish.. well I'll just cut a big political bleeding heart liberal lefty style rant short and say that if your going to attack this movie for making 'chavs' or 'rudes' the protagonists and the slightest bit identifiable or sympathetic to the audience in the process... then please just go piss off and fellate Harry Brown again or some shit like that would you?
p.s please don't be put of visiting Danbury Avenue its fine... if you don't make a point of walking on your own through the same group of rudes each day heh... looks gorgeous at night with the skyline and planes especially if you live high enough up a towerblock (on a uni grant), it really does!

http://tinyurl.com/5tl3m6u
I love the irony of someone saying only rich people give a fuck about class before then going on to slag off "chavs". What the fuck do you think that is if not a class judgement?
I don't give a fuck about class or chavs. It was an observation from reading the comments. I care about films. Its a shame this one isn't being judged on its strength but on the prejudices of bigots who have only seen the fucking trailer.

You are such an ignorant cunt .... Slagging off chavs has fuck all to do with class judgement and everything to do with wanting every one of the little shits gone ...
Some of the worse chavs I have ever met have upper class parents, huge houses and are fucking loaded with cash and cars ... enjoy your trailer but don't try to defend something when you obviously have no fucking clue what you are talking about. Cretin.

Joe Cornish sounds like a stand-up guy, and Attack The Block sounds like a well-done version of Skyline.
Which is a very, very good thing.
Not to pick nits (which is another way of saying that I am going to do just that) but you could have snuck in a picture of the director somewhere, if only to give readers some idea of who you're talking about.
Plus, to me at any rate, directors and producers are as important to a film as any star, so I like to see them.

It suggests the movie might actually be about something. If Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg had made this the leads would be 20/30-something middle class geeks and the whole thing would be a big fanboy circle-jerk.

I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say I wish ginge_muppet would get the parental love, attention and approval he apparently so desperately needs.
GM, just so you know, Chavs are a "class" thing. If you think you can be rich and a "chav" then you don't have a clue what you're talking about.
There are rich dicks, for sure, but they're not "chavs".
As someone whose seen the movie... It's actually really good. I wish it had gotten some US Distribution already, because it seems to be hitting a stronger note with US viewers than UK ones.
As for the "message" of the film, it's essentially this: The Daily Mail-type demonizing of "hoodies" is just pathetic fear-mongering. (It's almost a Four Lions for "hoodies", come to think of it.)
Plus it's scary, violent and funny.

When I made it clear I was gonna kick his nose through his skull, he couldn't wait to get away. The poor little fucker started walking backwards & spraying pepper spray at me. Fucking great! <p>
Fortunately for me & unfortunately for him, I wear glasses. So I smacked his head off someone's gate & his front teeth came out. His super intelligent response? "You knocked my teef out". "Yes I did, my genius white Negro friend". <p>
Happy days. <p>
You couldn't drag me to see this shite if it was free & the cunts all died in it.

Is a funny guy. Grew up watching The Adam and Joe show. Go to Youtube and search for Adam and Joe. They're fantastic guys. Adam and Joe cameod as zombies in Shaun of the Dead and in Hot Fuzz, where Adam had a bigger role as Tim Messenger.

shit taste in clothing. It's not just a class thing, there's tons of council estate kids that are alright, listen to good music, read, wanna make something of themselves Chav's are just stupid thick cunts as far as I can tell.

whenever we laugh or deride Chavs we're just laughing at the new working class. All you're doing is hating/poking fun at those people who have less than you do.
Some of them are nice, some of them are not. Replace the word Chav with a word like 'jew' or 'chink' etc etc and you get what I mean. You're hating someone for what they are before you know anything about them.
Incidently I am ridiculously excited for this film, loved Adam and Joe since their original TV show.
see this for why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qga7yGat2KA&NR=1

"Attack the Block still doesn’t have US distribution yet, which is a horrible shame. Where’s Rogue? Where’s Lionsgate? Are they scared of the accents? "
Oh, get real. If I read one more comment about the accents being a roadblock I'll puke. It's not the accent. It's the color of most of the protagonists, particularly the lead guy whom reviewers keep claiming will be a star. The movie business does not care about black characters nor does it care about creating black stars. If white guys made up most of that gang a distribution deal would have been done minutes after the first showing at SXSW.

Working class involves actually working.<p>
I grew up on a council estate. The difference is, I got an education & I work for a living. If this film was true to chavs, it would have them caving an old woman's head in with a kosh & stealing her savings. Or stealing a car that it took a real working class man a year of hard work to buy, just to joyride for a bit then burn it out.<p>
Working class my arse. It's got nothing to do with class. It's a question of a lack of class.

Americans needn't bother giving an opinion, because they know fuck all about it & that's obvious from the things you're saying. While most of the Brits on here seem to have never even met one.<p>
For instance smack_teddy, who seems to think me mentioning a chav trying to mug me means I must be a daily mail reader. Yeah. It's my fault some little cunt wanted to steal my money & got a hiding for his trouble.<p>
Or zombie_nation, calling chavs the "new working class" & saying it's just making fun of people with less than us. You probably don't realise it, because you think you're defending "the working class", but I am working class & that's actually such a fucking snobby thing to say. <p>
I'm guessing you've never been to a town like mine in the North East? Where the industries are dead & there are no jobs for even the decent people & those that have anything are preyed on by gangs of amoralistic little shits, none of whom have the balls to do anything one on one. Living among chavs means being unable to walk down the street freely without walking past a group of them & hoping to just get past without one of them noticing you. Those scenes in Harry Brown where he can't use the underpass are true to life. They're not working class. They're lower class. The scum of the earth.<p>
It's a fucking insult to working class people.

I'm not trying to speak for zombie_nation, but if you're going to slag off the idea of chav's being working class (seeing them ONLY as hooligans who don't work and prey on the weak, as opposed to a socio-economic status) then aren't you doing the same thing by lumping them as one group?

Because I AM working class. From the same background, same environment. But I'm not a chav. That's what I mean..you don't understand it. A chav isn't a person from that socio-economic background. It's a lifestyle choice. <p>
It's snobby because he's saying to mock or attack chavs is to belittle them for having less. That chav equals working class. You seem to think the same, in which case you don't get it. Chav has nothing to do with finances. Are most of them from working class areas? Yes. But so am I & I'm not a chav.<p>
I appreciate you're trying to defend them against snobbery, but they aren't victims of snobbery. The poor & the working class hate them too. Because they ARE fucking hooligans. You aren't defending poor people. You're defending the people who prey on the poor, i.e, their neighbours.

Because it's saying "stop picking on the little people", which shows that it's written by someone who has no notion of what working class is. <p>
It's offensive. Chav & working class are two totally different things. The fact that some people here are assuming that's what chav means, is total fucking snobbery & an insult. <p>

— I need to be clear on that. The lifestyle is a choice — I agree unconditionally.
I just don't agree that all Chav's are Hooligans. I DO think, that many of the obnoxious, idiotic fucksticks that rob a pensioner and then fuck off to play xbox ARE Hooligans. And many of them are Chavs.
But, Working Class ≠ Chav.

but thats not why,
its how furthur in tone-context for example your assessment of Harry Brown as being utterly true to life for all chavs is supposed to be wholly accurate and not ridiculously hyperbolic
just so were clear, lets look at these shades of the term 'chav', for which i put the term in inverted commas (forgot there with 'rudes' but oh well):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chav
All Chavs are alike to you? All people like you are Daily Mail readers to me, whether you got into a fight with a little fuckwad, and/or come from their designated class background or not

First, I didn't say Harry Brown was true to life. I said the underpass part was. I know because nobody can use them where I'm from. A female friend of mine walked past one once where they were all hanging out, burning bits of plastic & throwing it at each other, like chimps. This, despite clearly being in ther early fucking 20's, when most normal people have outgrown the wonder of fire & know that molten plastic isn't an amazing & fun concept. So she walked past & some chav cunt threw a bottle at her. Why? No reason. Just because they're chavs & that's what they do. <p>
Chavs are scum. Simple as that. Having lived among them, known them as neighbours, seen what they get up to, I think I'm qualified to say so. Moreso than you because if you have to fucking wiki it to try to prove a point to someone who grew up with them, then you clearly don't know anything about them. My "friends" were chavs (inverted commas because they weren't so much friends as people who lived in my street, but I'd hang out & talk sometimes, then they'd go off to steal a lawnmower from an old man's garden shed & I'd stay behind because I'm not a dick. So I do know them. <p>
We're talking about a group where the very culture of being a chav, IS to be a cunt. It's the whole point of it. <p>
We're talking about people who (to give even a basic & ridiculous but true example), wear their socks over their trousers, why? Fashion statement? No. So the stuff they shoplift doesn't fall out. Why you feel the need to defend people you don't even understand, totally baffles me.

When you have to wiki something like chavs, it shows the difference between lived experience & the ramblings of someone who thinks he knows but knows fuck all. Which is why you called them "the new working class". They're not & never will be. <p>
To reiterate what I said earlier, a working class man has to work a year of his life to buy a car. A chav steals them & burns them. That, in a nutshell, is a chav. <p>
So don't you get on your fucking high horse to me kid, presuming you're a defender of the working class, because I am working class & you're not needed. Far from reading the Daily Tory, it's my working class morals & ethics that makes me hate chavs, because I had to live with the cunts.

What made you think I'd be an audience to your wiki quotes? An unreliable source of information at best, talking about stuff that I already know far better. <p>
Do you think I'm gonna read wikipedia & think "Oh. It turns out I was wrong. I lived 2 thirds of my life among them & they were actually really friendly the whole time. I thought they were nasty, illiterate thugs, based on experience, but it turns out it was my imagination."? <p>
People like you get on my nerves. You don't know what you're talking about, yet have to spout off about it anyway. Then back it up with wiki bullshit & accuse anyone who disagrees of being a Daily Mail reader. I'd love to live in your world, where liberal ideals always work & it comes down to the paper you read. Unfortunately, I never had the luxury to be a fantasist. It shows what a closeted (& chav free) world you live in. <p>
Politically, I'm what you might call liberal, possibly even left wing. That again is a working class thing & it means I wouldn't have any interest in reading the Daily Mail, or agree with their fear mongering. <p>
I'm all for tolerance, but there are times when facts are facts & there's a certain point where "live & let live" doesn't apply. Is it true that assualts are up in the UK? Yes. Is it true that they are the main culprits? Yes. Is it true that there's a serious issue with knife crime & that the people doing it are usually chavs? Yes. Is it true that the UK has bred an entire generation of illiterate, braindead thugs & that they're breeding more? Yes. Is the country fucked? Looks like it. Am I a Daily Mail reader? Am I fuck.<p>

and you clearly havnt read my posts past your angry fever sleepwalk.
Yeah! Off course! The underpass was true to life because YOU experienced it. You who in a stubborn shortned temper refuses to look at other areas like wiki or the urban dictionary because YOUR experience spells it all out. Guess what? I KNOW that ALL chavs are really just pathetic little poor guys who dont know who to look up to them, none are really nasty because a pathetic guy tried to mug ME...and Joe Cornish...and thats all you need to know isn't it? Douche.
my last word... i have lived on a council estate and with 'chavs' you idiot , and the fact you refuse to even look at the meaning or reason of checking those descriptions of Chav past your experiences and what exists in your mind says it all about your self centered xenophobic attitude that equals to a completely arrogant fear-mongering pissy pants misplaced attitude on your part, twat for brains. You miss the whole point of looking at the different definitions, and why someone would want to engage wiith this film.
You shouldnt be here taking out you pissy pants ignorance on the film and people who have spent plenty of time around these people and understand who they are wholistically as a shared defined group of people.

that's what you've proven to an extent to be by just how purely you've read what this film is getting at and what it is exactly i've had to say to you. So by your admission and with your irrational illogical temperament towards the whole subject here, you sound pretty darn close to the thing our describing you hate to me.
But i'll just put that down to transgression from a humble working class fella who doesn't really give a shit to try and really actively change or progressively benefit your own class as a whole in any way, in any field when it comes down to it.

There's a difference between xenophobia & liking the freedom for my Gran to walk down the street without fear of a gang of little cunts beating her up because they're bored & can't read & anyway, old people are minging.

i love that freedom, i want it for everyone too!
but the wiki reference etc - nor the subject of this topic - is not all about you, and your best friend/gran
nor is it about your sado-masochistic aggro delusion fetish of pimm drinking 4 chav loving followed by you stealing all their babies and drowning them in a almost genocidal purge all in one go

1. I don't need to read the defintion to know they're cunts. <p>
2. Wikipedia isn't a credible source. It can be edited & amended by anyone. I could make a page saying strawberries taste like shit. All I'd have have to do then, is google some writer saying he or she thinks strawberries taste like shit, copy the url, enter it as a citation & hey presto. Strawberries officially taste like shit. The only reason I wouldn't be worried about bias on a charver page, is the fact that they can't read or write.

Living in one of the poorest areas of West Belfast, muggings is just something that happens daily. You could be walikng to the shop to buy milk and the next thing you'll hear is "GetUr Mobile out Ya Fukkin Froot" Its awful, terrifying and degrading but I completely agree with what Mr.Cornish says. I had a moment like the one he was describing. I was being chased by about 10 spides (Irish for Chavs, and a far better description if ya ask me!!) and once they caught me, I said to one of them something along the lines of "Fucksake mate, wise up! I just wanna make it home in one piece!" The mugger (sans mask) looked at me and I could actually see him considering what a clusterfuck we were embroiled in lol Then his eleven yr old mate sucker punched me and knocked me out (WHY AM I ADMITTING TIS???). But the thing to me is...I was just as poor as he was!! They wanted a mobile phone..I COULDNT EVEN AFFORD A FUCKING MOBILE PHONE!!!! lol

Isn't there a few movies about french couples living in the countryside getting terrorized by fucking tweens in hoodies? Isn't that like a whole subculture in your countries?
It's funny to me, because living stateside in New Jersey and commuting to/working most of my adult life in New York, I really cannot imagine anyone that's not a hulking mess with a gun doing the things these kids are described as doing. I don't know anyone in my family, older women included, who wouldn't do SOME damage to these kids if they tried to steal a phone or something. Is everyone over there just too nice or they throw their arms up and let it happen, and don't take that second to even compare their own size to the robber/hooligan in that split second and think, "Fuck, I think I could take this kid..."?
For proof, I'd say at least once or twice a year, we have surveillance videos on the news of old ladies beating the living shit out of a mugger with their hand bag or cane, all the while holding onto her bag as though she'd rather die than give it up. Same goes for dudes running bodegas or little deli/convenience stores. Invariably, the mugger is some kid who maybe is just not intimidating enough to be a mugger, by our standards at least. Is it smart to do this? No... but I think the fact that the people who would do such a thing are aware that average jane/joe citizen might be willing to go all the way makes them think twice about doing it. The only time you see someone really get it is when it's a gang against one and there's nobody else around. Hell, we have a televisions how over here called 'What would you do?" and they staged a couple of older guys beating the shit out of this smaller, younger guy on the street in Newark, New Jersey and one spanish lady, I'd say in her early 40's actually pulled her car over, got out and started ranting and raving putting a stop to the fight/willing to give the guy getting beat on a ride. True, if it were real she might have gotten gang-raped or something, but the point is, there were at least 4 or 5 people who had the balls to get in the middle of what was going on and put a stop to it. Then a big black dude came out of a bar half a block away and almost beat the shit out of the 'actors'.
As a matter of fact, it's pretty routine where I live for people to get confrontational and I even tell me wife to cool it sometimes because you never know who you're dealing with. It's just not worth it to do that all the time, especially with the road rage here in the U.S. and people carrying weapons, thinking everything is a game of one-ups-manship. I try to avoid confrontation, but for God's sake, if anyone anywhere near the size/look (they all look soft)/age of the kids in this poster tried that shit, they'd be on the fucking ground. I'd honestly rather die than let a little justin bieber-dressing bastard get away with that shit. It's not about feeling sorry for them, it's about the law of the jungle... if they want to take it there then the person they're after has every right to take it there as well and then they deserve whatever is coming to them. I can't speak on class inequities, as that's a whole separate issue from personal safety.

April 6, 2011, 10:35 a.m. CST

by Phil Black

Weapons are probably the big difference. Guns are almost unheard of in the UK and knives are thankfully still rare (some of the inner city gangs being an exception).
So most people here if confronted with even a rudimentary weapon will be so alarmed to even see it they will enter a state of shock/fear.
I'd say that you don't even need to see a weapon for that - most people go "Deer in Headlights" when they are confronted by mere aggression. Most of them but then muggers are the one's choosing their targets.
At the same time we too have tons of stories of old ladies fending off muggers and even jewellery store thieves with nothing but a handbag (purse) or walking stick - those are celebrated in the local media too.

April 6, 2011, 10:41 a.m. CST

by Phil Black

I am looking forward to renting this, I doubt it's going to celebrate Chavs so much as humanise them.
They are human, they just happen to be scum.

lol .... probably the most distant comparison you could have made ... The Mafia don't drive disabled women to commit suicide, they don't beat up elderly people to steal their purses or stab innocent teenagers because they are bored and its 'fun' ... dark_shite seems to be the only poster here with a proper grasp of just how purely evil these little fuckers can be. They have zero concept of right and wrong ...

towards who and what 'council rudes' are, and the reason to watch or engage with such a film which, as intruder puts it, is humanizing them... through a fucking premise where vicious little/big shits from outer space start to prey on them! You guys are just confused and highly strung over some simple facts to me.

You're still mocking and defining the new working class (by which I mean the poorest, least educated and with the fewest opportunities) on what a few of them do.
Not defending them, just saying is all.
<---goes back to his castle via a fox-hunt to drink his champagne